188: Chapter 188 Getting up to pee in the middle of the night and stumbling upon a sixth-tier beast king stealing electricity?

Jiangcheng City Defense Headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng's office.

As Su Ming pushed the door open, the fragrance of braised pork wafted over him.

Ye Xiao was sitting cross-legged on the leather sofa in the office, with four dishes and a soup set out on the coffee table, eating until his mouth was oily and glistening.

He was wearing a military camouflage jacket over his blue striped shorts, and although his hair was a mess, his mental state was quite good.

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng sat behind the large mahogany desk, head lowered as he flipped through report files, his brow furrowed into a deep frown.

Hearing the door open, both of them looked up simultaneously.

"Brother Ming!" Ye Xiao shouted excitedly, pointing his chopsticks at the rice, "You should come eat some too! The military cafeteria is simply worlds apart from the school cafeteria. This braised pork is amazing, fatty but not greasy..."

Su Ming swept a glance at him.

Getting emotionally attached to public-funded room and board?

"You seem pretty comfortable here. Keep eating for two more days and you could just enlist and become the manager of the pig farm here."

He casually snatched a chicken leg from the plate, took a bite, and spoke vaguely to Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng behind the desk, "Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng, the matter of the electricity thief is handled."

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng put down the analysis report in his hand and raised his eyelids upon hearing this.

"Hmm?"

"Your Captain went out personally, used physical persuasion, and the evidence has been secured." Su Ming chewed on the chicken leg, "The Jiangcheng Power Bureau can close the case; you can tell Director Wang Gang."

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng leaned back in his chair, his gaze scrutinizing.

He had originally intended to go through the bail process this afternoon and release Ye Xiao directly.

After a night of interrogation and technical comparison, even if Ye Xiao's Tier 3 Silver Early Stage Thunder Body were pushed to its limit, it would be impossible to drain the 500,000-volt high-voltage power grid.

The data was right there; it couldn't have been him.

Yet, Su Ming was actually coming to him now to bring up physical evidence?

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng narrowed his eyes, staring at Su Ming.

"Don't mess with me. Did you really go find a scapegoat?"

Su Ming pulled out a tissue to wipe his hands.

"What do you mean by scapegoat? I am an active-duty officer who abides by the Law and relies on evidence."

Su Ming finished the last bite of the chicken leg and accurately tossed the bone into the trash can.

"I've brought the suspect back. It's the real deal; it can definitely take the fall."

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng was completely dumbfounded.

This kid went to the Source Abyss and actually managed to tie up a Source Beast and bring it back?

"Where is the suspect?"

Su Ming looked around the office and shook his head.

"It won't fit in this room."

Won't fit?

"Let's go, to the training ground in the back." Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng stood up, half-believing, and strode outside.

Upon hearing that he could finally be exonerated, Ye Xiao sprang up from the sofa, abandoning his meal, his face flushed with excitement.

He shuffled out in his military slippers to follow them.

He followed closely behind in two or three steps.

Su Ming walked at the very back with a carefree air.

The three of them passed through the back door of the command building and arrived at the military district's spacious internal training ground.

It was one-thirty in the afternoon, and the sun was at its Peak.

The training ground was massive, as wide as four football fields put together.

At the edge, several second lieutenants were leading drills for the new recruits. Dozens of shirtless recruits were carrying logs to train their physical fitness, their shouts echoing to the heavens.

Seeing Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng approach, the second lieutenant immediately raised his hand to signal the team to rest in place.

Dozens of curious gazes cast toward them.

Especially when they saw the young man in striped shorts and a bathrobe following the lieutenant colonel, their expressions became extremely strange.

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng stopped in a large open space in the center of the training ground.

"Alright. This place is two hundred meters long and one hundred meters wide, and the ground is paved with military-grade Tier 3 pressure-resistant alloy plates. Stop playing coy, what exactly did you catch?"

Su Ming walked to the middle of the open space.

He did not speak.

He raised his left hand.

He lifted his hand with an air of nonchalance.

The next second...

The sky above the training ground suddenly darkened.

The blinding sunlight overhead was instantly obscured by a massive black shadow that appeared out of thin air.

Dozens of new recruits looked up subconsciously.

A huge shadow plummeted from the Void Realm.

The black shadow was fully five meters high and over ten meters long.

It was massive, pitch-black, and exuded a thick, bloody stench.

It was a Thunder Horn Rhino corpse.

"Boom!"

The massive body slammed onto the military-grade Tier 3 pressure-resistant alloy plates without any cushioning.

The ground shook violently.

The dull, booming sound tore through the air, and a visible shockwave swept crazily across the ground.

The few recruits closest to it were caught off guard and directly knocked to the ground by the shockwave.

The extremely violent Thunder-type pressure, even as the lingering remnant of a corpse, radiated wantonly at this moment.

Dozens of new recruits felt their chests tighten, their breathing stalled, and the Source Energy within their bodies even showed signs of stagnation and paralysis.

Two of them, whose legs went weak, knelt down directly.

"Tier... Tier 6?!"

A Tier 4 instructor widened his eyes, his voice trembling.

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng was standing the closest.

He felt the terrifying, genuine aura on the corpse, and his legs couldn't help but stiffen.

"No, this aura... it's Peak Tier 6!"

"A being that has taken a half-step into Tier 7!"

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng stared fixedly at the dark blue thunder markings on the surface of the Thunder Horn Rhino's body that had not yet completely dissipated.

Peak Tier 6.

In the decades of Jiangcheng's history, the highest-tier exotic beast the City Defense Army had ever hunted combined was only Tier 5.

If a monster like a Peak Tier 6 were to charge into Jiangcheng, it could raze half the city to the ground in less than an hour.

This was the real culprit of the power outage case?

Using a Peak Tier 6 Thunder-type Beast King to close the case?

He took two steps forward, his gaze falling on the Thunder Horn Rhino's head.

That was the area with the most terrifying defense on the entire body.

The obsidian-like alloy skull was enough to withstand military armor-piercing rounds.

But now, the center of that skull was completely sunken in.

The bone had shattered, caving into a fist-sized crater.

Spiderweb-like cracks spread outward, and bone fragments mixed with brain matter and black blood smeared a large area.

One punch.

Just one punch!

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng turned his head abruptly to look at Su Ming.

"Don't tell me... you did this all by yourself?"

Su Ming spread his hands.

"This guy did it last night." Su Ming said with a straight face, pointing at the behemoth on the ground, "I went for a midnight leak and happened to see it flying over from the west, clinging to our Jiangcheng power grid's main line and starting to steal electricity like crazy."

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng: "..."

"I saw that and thought, this won't do. The whole city is out of power, the common people can't even use their air conditioners; it's so hot in the middle of summer."

Su Ming shook his head and sighed, looking concerned for the country and the people, "And you know me, as an active-duty Captain, how could I tolerate such a vicious act of destroying national infrastructure?"

Su Ming spoke with righteous indignation.

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng: "..."

"To protect the safety of the public's property, I chased it along the high-voltage lines all morning. I chased it all the way to the Western Frontier border."

"Unfortunately, not only did this beast refuse to surrender, but it also dared to bare its teeth at me."

"Forced by circumstances, I had no choice but to kill it on the spot."

Su Ming patted the scales of the Thunder Horn Rhino, "Now I'm handing it over as physical evidence for the power outage case. The mystery of last night's outage is solved! Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng, could you ask the people from the Power Bureau to come and sign for it?"

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng: "..."

This explanation.

The logic was so shattered it couldn't even be picked up.

God-tier excuse: taking a midnight leak and happening to run into a Peak Tier 6 Beast King stealing electricity on a power pole.

And chased it all the way to the border?

Chasing a Peak Tier 6 Thunder-type beast?

Do you think this is a stray dog at the entrance of a village?

...

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng and the several deputy officers present didn't refute it.

With a Peak Tier 6 corpse placed right here,

Who could say it wasn't the one that did it?

"Brother Ming!"

A miserable wail broke the silence.

Ye Xiao didn't care how absurd this explanation was.

He only knew that the huge black pot he was carrying had finally been completely removed.

The kid's eyes were red, his lips trembling, as he recalled the painful experience of being slapped by Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng while bare-assed last night and suffering social death in front of a group of staff while wearing Source Energy suppression handcuffs; all his grievances burst forth at this moment.

Brother Ming really went!

He said he would clear his name, and he really cleared it!

Ye Xiao performed a sliding kneel, his knees grinding against the concrete floor with a harsh sound, his arms hugging Su Ming's thighs tightly.

"Brother Ming, you are my living ancestor...!"

"This immense kindness, I, Ye Xiao, wouldn't be able to repay it even if I were a beast of burden in my next life. Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river; from today on, I, Ye Xiao, am your most loyal sidekick."

Su Ming looked disgusted and lifted a foot to kick Ye Xiao's butt.

"Get lost. Don't wipe your snot on my pants."

Ye Xiao rolled with the momentum and threw himself directly onto the massive Thunder Horn Rhino corpse.

He possessed an SS-grade [Nine Heavens Thunder Body] talent and his perception of Thunder-type Source Beasts was far beyond that of ordinary people.

As soon as his hands touched the scales, the residual Thunder-type Source Energy surged into his Meridians, and that sense of affinity made the hair all over his body stand on end.

"Holy crap..."

"This rich Thunder-type Source Energy..."

"This domineering numbing sensation..."

Ye Xiao lay on the beast corpse, touching it here and there, his expression intoxicated, even more devoted than when he was being served by two girls at Heaven on Earth last night.

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng watched this scene, the veins on his forehead throbbing.

From this morning until now, it hadn't even been five full hours.

This kid flew to the Western Frontier by himself and solo-killed a Peak Tier 6 Thunder Horn Rhino.

How is that any different from going out to buy groceries?

He glanced at Su Ming's smug face, which was practically screaming "Praise me."

The rating given to Su Ming by the Southern Military Region's intelligence department... probably needs to be completely rewritten.

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng forced himself to calm down and took out his military tablet to start verifying.

"Wait a minute."

He walked around the corpse of the Thunder Horn Rhino and frowned.

"Where is the horn?"

The reason the Thunder Horn Rhino is called a Thunder Horn Rhino is because of that iconic giant horn on the tip of its nose, which contains the ultimate Thunder-type Law energy.

That is the most valuable core part of the entire beast,

And also the most critical identification point for verifying the Source Beast's tier.

But there was only a sunken, bloody hole on the tip of the corpse's nose; it was completely bare.

Su Ming blinked.

"What horn?"

"The Thunder Horn."

Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng pointed to the bloody hole.

"Oh, this."

Su Ming looked enlightened,

"Lieutenant Colonel Chu Feng, you might not know..."

"This one is a female."

"Females don't have horns..."

"???"